“No, this can’t be happening.” Jack Sanders moaned.
He had been up all night, searching through the files he had smuggled home with him from the secure government building where he had been debriefed from his last mission. Jack was thirty one years old. With his wavy blond hair and blue eyes, many called him handsome. However his handsome face was now twisted in grief.
Jack was a soldier, or more specifically a member of the Australian SAS. He had been operating in northern Russia, where he and Michael Corner, another SAS man, had heard rumours of an old soviet military base, high up in the Ural mountain ranges. The rumours stated that the base contained secret Soviet documents from the cold war.
With their mission completed, the two SAS men decided to look around, what they found in the base had led to a fight, in which Jack had been seriously wounded by Michael, and which had caused Michael to run off, leaving Jack for dead.
Jack had survived, he had called in the Australian military on a satellite phone and eventually been extracted. What they had found in the Ural ranges had haunted Jack through those long weeks awaiting extraction, the documents he had found had led him to break in to the office of a high ranking military official and steal important files. What the files contained shook Jack to his core.
He had to run, it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed the files were missing, and then it would only take a few minutes to work out where they had gone. He had to get his wife and their newborn daughter, Emily, out of the country as soon as possible. He quickly bundled the files into a bag and ran outside to his car, a battered Holden Commodore. He put the key into the ignition and pulled out of the driveway.
His wife had gone out for the night, and had left Emily with one of her relatives. As he drove down the highway to his wife’s relatives, who unfortunately lived on the other side of Sydney, he pulled his mobile out of his jeans and dialled his wife’s number. She picked up almost instantly.
“Jack?” she asked, her voice was quivering as if there was a hungry lion standing in front of her. “Jack is that you?”
“Sarah, we’ve got to run, I’m going to get Emily now, meet me at the Bradley's house.”
“Jack... I...” She paused. “Jack, run!” She yelled “They’ve got me, run...”
She screamed out in pain and her voice was cut off. The phone was silent for a second, and then a familiar voice answered.
“Hello Jack.”
“Michael... If you lay one hand on her I swear to god I’ll...”
“You’ll what?” Laughed Michael. “Storm a military base and take on half the Australian army? No Jack, you’re quite powerless right now. Come back to the base with the documents and I’ll let your wife live.”
“You’re a two-faced, lying son of a bitch.” Yelled Jack, and as much as it pained him to do it, he hung up and tossed the phone out the window. Damn it, he thought, they had almost certainly knew where he was now by tracing his mobile phone. And Sarah...
“Oh, this is some serious shit.” He said to himself.
Two minutes later he pulled into the Bradley's driveway. It was a cloudless night, and the stars twinkled down on him, but he didn’t have time to stop and admire it. He sprinted up to the door and knocked loudly, shouting
“Gwen!, Jeff!”
Gwen Bradley opened the door. She was a short, plump and exceptionally rude woman who pestered you day and night, about such things as telling you to brush his hair and teeth.
“Jack, what are you doing here? I thought Sarah was supposed to pick Emily up. Has something...” Jack had to cut her off before she got going, otherwise he’d be here all night.
“No time to explain just let me in!”
“Ok, ok, keep your hair on.”
As soon as there was a space through the doorway big enough for him to fit through Jack dashed inside.
“Where’s Emily?” Jack asked frantically.
“In the living room.” She replied. “But what’s this all...”
Not waiting for her to finish, Jack dashed down the hallway and entered the living room.
The walls were covered in old fashioned wallpaper, not to mention the old furniture, old TV and the overwhelming old person smell. The only thing that looked like it had been bought in this decade was a black and green porter-cot standing in the middle of the room. Jack walked over to it and looked inside, and for the first time in many weeks he smiled. Emily lay in the cot with a thumb in her mouth, sleeping peacefully, oblivious to all the horrible events that were happening. Only nine weeks old, she was growing fast.
“There we are, sweetheart,” He said as he picked her up, “Daddy's here.”
Thankfully she didn’t wake up. Just as he was picking her up Mrs Bradley’s plump form appeared in the doorway.
“Jack what on earth is going on?” She asked.
“There’s no time to explain but listen, you and your husband are in danger, and...” Jack paused. “Where is your husband by the way?”
“Jeff? He’s upstairs sleeping.”
“Go wake him up, tell him you’ve got to get out of here right now, don’t pack or anything just get in your car and drive, out of town, out of the state even.”
"I'm not going anywhere until you me and Jeff have a good long chat."
“Oh hurry up, and do you know where that baby carrier thing is? The thing that straps to my chest and Emily goes inside it?”
“It’s just there on the seat.” She said, pointing at a small leather armchair.
As she went upstairs he got the carrier, put it on and put Emily in it. Jack couldn't wait for her, so he stepped up to the front door and was about to go outside when he saw blue, red and white lights flashing outside.
“Oh crap.”
Jack thought fast. The police had probably been tipped off by Michael, they would stall him till Michael and the military got here. They were already halfway up the pathway. He turned around and sprinted to the back door. He quickly went into the Bradleys backyard and jumped over the fence into the neighbour’s driveway. He crept over to the edge of the fence and peeked around. The police had parked the cars in a semicircle around the front yard, however a few police cars were parked separately from the others. It seemed like there hadn’t been enough room in the semi-circle. Jack decided to make a dash for the nearest, which was only a few metres away and had had its engine left on. Thankfully the police's attention was focused on the house and no one noticed him and he made it to the car without being spotted. He opened the door and got inside.
At that precise moment Gwen screamed, and an officer inside the house cried out in pain. Most of the officer’s rushed inside the house and the rest were completely focused on the Bradleys home. No-one noticed the police car drive silently away.
Jack knew he had to leave the country, He noticed a mobile lying on the passenger seat. He reached for it and dialled Rex’s number. Rex was a friend of his who owned a small leisure craft which was filled with tourists most days, cruising in the Sydney harbour bay and soaking up the sun. He also had something else moored on a pier ten miles north of Sydney. The mobile stopped ringing and a familiar voice said hello.
“Hey Rex, it's Jack. Listen I was wondering if I could borrow your seaplane.”
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hiya all thanks for reviews.
I'm going on holidays for around 2 months, so I won't be able to post for awhile, but i'm gona edit this bit out and write some more so bye for awhile.
Hi! OK, here are some things I noticed:
First:
This is a bit long. It's one of the problems I usually run into too, so I know how easy it is to overlook things like this. Try shortening it up. My advice is to make it more along the lines of "With their mission completed, the two SAS men decided to look around. What they had found in the base had led to a fight between them, in which Jack had been seriously wounded. Michael had then run off, leaving Jack for dead". It's not the best, but at least it's not so long.
Also, try adding a bit more description. Build the suspense up of what it was they found. This whole part went by kinda fast for me.
Second:
This whole part seems a bit awkward to me. I'm horrible at grammar so I'm not a hundred percent sure on this, but I think that the bolded commas were used wrong. Shouldn't they be semicolons or periods? But again, I'm not really sure so you could be right. Also, you used the word "extract" twice. Why not try something like rescue?
Third:
You used "his wife" a lot here. It gets pretty repetitive, so I suggest you either name her earlier or use things like "her number" or "their relatives"
Fourth:
Again, long sentence. Try putting a period where I suggested to shorten it up.
Five:
I absolutely loved this part. The description you used was subtle yet detailed enough for the reader to get a good image of the scene, and the dialogue really made your characters come more alive to me. Awesome work
All in all, I think you did great. The story immediately caught my attention and it had an amazing plot. PM as soon as you write more! :3
Naa, you'll be good at it
:arrow Tip I
Well, see, you have a lot of different scenery in this, so scenery would be a good place to start with the imagery.
Think about a place you've been to, and loved. Thing of the scenery around it. Why did you love it? Did it smell nice? Did it look nice? Was there a taste on the air? What could you see around you, the colours etc. Use the senses as the base of description but this still isn't imagery. Once you have your description, you add in your imagery onto the description. Let's take:
we could add some imagery in here:
What was on the wallpaper? Now, this is why writing is a craft. You don't decide what's on the wallpaper, your characters do. Make sure they choose something that they would choose, and not something that you have chosen for them. So if Emily Bronte's Heathcliff lived alone in a house, in modern times, he wouldn't have daisies on his wallpaper, would he? So we choose something that matches our characters' personalities. At this point, you don't need to worry too much seeing as it's only the first chapter, so we're not too familiar with your characters yet.
Once you've chosen your characters wallpaper, add in some imagery. Let's see... hmm, methinks I shall resort to Emily again:
Wuthering Heights - Mr Lockwood is just learning of Catherine for the first time:
Catherine Earnshaw . . . Catherine Heathcliff . . . Catherine Linton . . . a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines . . .
This is good imagery, it conjures up an image in our mind of how he feels looking at the names. It gives us a picture of how he feels and why, but more than that, it gives us an image of what he feels.
Tip II[/b] [u]Visit the place
Okay; well you want to know what you're describing and putting imagery into, so go and visit the place. If a scene takes place in a lake, go to a lake and observe your surroundings, if you do this it will appear more vivid in your own work. You might not be able to go and visit certain places, so use google images and find some pictures. Study them for ten minutes, have a piece of paper beside you and note any emotion you feel. Maybe it makes you feel melancholy, include that. Firstly though, write a long list of things about your character. Head to toe descriptions, and get into your character's mindset.
Tip III Figurative Language
Figurative language uses similes and metaphors and other forms of speech. Personification can be a really useful one. It's when yout take an inanimate object and turn it into an animate one, let's take Sarah <CastlesInTheSky> she is amazing at imagery and such, an example of personification by her:
This is very good. I love this one
Similes too are very good in writing and metaphors.
That's about it I think, but you asked me where you should put the imagery in, the answer, is wherever it feels right. When you describe things it's always nice to put a bit of imagery in, you choose where.
I hope this helped xD
~Kirsten/Lost
xxx
I actually thought the pace was ok, it wasen't to rushed but it was fast enough to not make me stop and try and flick through it faster.
Unfortunatly there is a distinct lack of imagery, I find it hard to picture what things look like in my head. Maybe you could for example describe what the Bradleys house looks like, because from what you've givin us it could be anything from a cottage to a medi-evil castle.
One of the things I love about your story so far is the Plotline. I'm seriously excited about whats going to happen next.
Also I was wondering if this is going to be a really long novel or something that only has a few more parts.
Imagery - 3/10
Pace - 7/10
Plotline - 10/10
Scarecrow
Kk thanks for review.
I'm gona try and edit imagery in, but with my limited skills with imagery that is gona take awhile.
This has potential xD But you do need to work on some things. You use redundant words and/or phrases sometimes, and this really puts me off. You also use the wrong grammar sometimes, ie its instead of it's.
You need to work on:
Give them quirks. We have no way of distinguishing your characters from any other. Why? Because you need quirks. Give us some. Use interesting dialogue. Make sure the dialogue is apt and fits the character, have them asking quetions, demanding answers. Have fun with them. Be very careful of the narrative. If your narrator describes things in great detail, you cannot have her dropping this trait halfway through, not that yours do.
One of your main problems, is your lack of imagery. We want something, anything, to conjure up images in our heads. Give us that. Don't fear over describing things. Never, ever fear similes and metaphors.
Numbers
1. The first sentence is much too long. It would actually be quite good if you chopped it down a bit. I'll help you later, sorry if this is a bit rushed but I've promised someone else a review for ages and I really need to hurry up
2.
sounds better:
3. Meet me at your relatives?
This isn't good for character development. Who would talk like that? They'd say the relatives' names.
4. comma
5. comma
6. comma.
7. Pestered 'you' about things such as telling 'Jack'
these are opposite tenses, so you need to choose which one you are going to use.
8. This is a bit rude, the man would obviously be upset, so why would she be so rude? Would a human really act like this? Or is she especially rude? If so you need to tell us.
9. Good description, but it doesn't really fit here. He's running in to save his daughter, he's not exactly going to notice all this. Maybe later you could have a reminiscent with this in it.
10. comma.
11. This person doesn't seem human. If you were in this situation, you'd question things. Why? Why is she to leave her home? She'd want more information.
12. police's not polices.
13. it's not its.
Hope I helped
~Lost
You have several run-on sentences here, which isn't good.
Should be, "There we are, sweetheart," he said. "Daddy's here to pick you up."
Overall: I think this needs to be slowed down. Tell the reader more about the setting and Jacks' mission.
pretty good but maybe a slower pace
Thanks for the review.
I'm going to continue it, never actually made it through more than 3 chaptors on a story before but this time I'm gona try an finish it.
And i'll make the edits in a minute.
Hey there W1ldf1r3! June here!
Such an exciting story you have going on here. I love it! I'm intrigued and I can't wait to read more!
A few nitpicks:
Should be:
"No, this can't be happening," Jack Sanders moaned.
Watch your order of staging
There should be no break in the line after the dialog.
Sweetheart can be written as one word. Your first two periods should be a comma. "Daddies..." should be "Daddy's"
their should be "there"
I loved it! I was pulled in, and I enjoyed it. Your pace is good! It's not too rushed. There were a few errors there in grammar that could be fixed, but nothing too major.
Sorry this critique is short. I'm in quite a rush.
PM me when you have the next part... if you continue this.
10/10
Great job
xxJune